Susan Sontag: Not Every Type of Intelligence Is Worth Defending

"We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying."

16 January, 2015

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an American essayist, critic, and social activist. She frequently wrote from and about areas of conflict, as well as on topics ranging from healthcare and illness to human rights. Sontag is often cited as one of the most influential social critics of her generation.

"We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying."